Prince of Wales employs close friend as adviser to Duchy of Cornwall estate

William Van Cutsem is godfather to Prince George and his clothing designer wife is also a friend

Prince George’s godfather has been appointed as an adviser for the Duchy of Cornwall Estate.
The estate – the billion-pound business empire which the Prince of Wales inherited on the death of his grandmother – Elizabeth II, generated profits of £23.6 million in the last financial year.
William Van Cutsem, 44, one of Prince Willliam’s most loyal and closest friends, is a chartered surveyor specialising in logistics, renewable businesses and building storage facilities across Britain.
In the Duchy’s annual report he is described as having a “keen interest in regenerative farming practices within the family’s home and farming businesses”.
The Prince of Wales and Mr Van Cutsem have country homes 20 miles apart in Norfolk and were pictured together in June at the wedding of Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster, to Olivia Henson at Chester Cathedral.
Mr Van Cutsem, who is a co-founder and investment director for a property company, is married to Rosie, who along with her sister, Lucia, founded the successful country clothing designer Troy London often worn by the Princess of Wales. 
Mrs Van Cutsem is also a close friend of the Prince of Wales.
The appointment comes after William removed the Queen’s sister, Annabel Elliot, from the payroll.
The 75 year-old has been paid several hundred thousand pounds for her services as an interior designer over the last two decades.
She was employed by the King, then Prince of Wales, as chief designer of his estates following his 2005 marriage to Camilla.
Since then, she has enjoyed an annual cash injection for her work on the Duchy holiday cottage portfolio, decorating and updating its attractive period properties in Cornwall, Wales and the Isles of Scilly.
Sources confirmed that Prince William would no longer employ Ms Elliot, although it was no reflection on her work.
The Duchy’s annual accounts detail how she had been paid “in the normal course of business and on an arm’s length basis” varying amounts ranging between £19,625 and £82,272 to maintain its rental properties as well as the Duchy offices and its plant nursery.
She was reimbursed additional amounts each year, ranging from £7,160 to £90,285, for the purchase of furniture, furnishings and retail stock.
Ms Elliot was also employed to oversee the refurbishment of a 20-bedroom pub in the centre of the King’s Poundbury development in Dorset and to help convert two cottages and a lodge for guests at Dumfries House in Ayrshire, which the monarch saved for the nation in 2007.
However, the latest Duchy of Cornwall accounts, detailing the incomings and outgoings of Prince William’s first full year as Duke of Cornwall, reveal that for the first time in almost two decades, Ms Elliot was not paid for her services during 2023-2024.